December 7, 2016

Happy Birthday!  Well, today is the big one….60!  Somehow I don’t think people will belief the ‘29’ line anymore. Right off, Socorro knocked on the door with a dozen yellow roses.  What a beautiful bouquet!   For me, it was a busy start because it was my first day to teach in the summer course.  It is hard to learn so many new vocabulary words in one day.  I taught a hands on science class and it is not my everyday choice of words.  We had 15 for the morning and I think I kept everyone busy with lots of experiments.  The Juayua group is on the younger side, ages 9 to 12, so I think they liked doing things and competitions.  Dwaine helped me keep things moving handing out items, serving refreshments and helping with group activities.  After lunch I went to Socorro’s.  She was available today and we got a good start into Que Dice la Biblia.  We did a round of pick ups for church and had a good turnout. Dwaine taught about the book of Judges. At the end, Alba and Linda put together a surprise birthday gathering with a cake and piñata.  Whew, I got my own princess piñata!  It was all delightful and I enjoyed the fellowship.  When I got home, Dwaine had invited a few friends to come by and I was on for the second surprise and another cake!  Yikes!  We didn’t cut it because we just finished the other cake.  Through the day I had the delight of talking to each of the children, my dad and stepmom and Sharon, a dear friend in Huntsville.  It is blessing to have family and that made my birthday really great!

Summer Class in Juayua

Birthday Celebrations!

 

December 6, 2016

Time to wrap it up.  Dwaine picked up Kiki for summer school in Salcoatitan.  Miguel did not come and we had invited Jani for the class, but she did not come either.  I stayed home to work on my lesson for Wednesday morning.  Hopefully it will all come together.  I primarily wrote a few pages of notes to handout as I had all the activities planned.  For the afternoon we made a trip to Santa Ana.  We left about noon and took Vilma and her daughter Andrea to the hospital for a doctor visit and medicine.  We had a little trouble finding the hospital, but only about 10 minutes of searching.  We stopped and asked several people directions and got a little closer with each stop.  We had a general idea, but it had been a long time since we had visited that hospital.  While they were at the doctor, we had a goal to renew our car license.  It is like obtaining a tag for your car.  It is issued in the form of a card that must be with your car when you are driving.  The car is in my name since Della transferred it to me just as they were leaving when little Charlotte was born.  First we went to Metro Central as we had found an office there that would work.  That office had closed, so we would have to locate the main office.  Again, we had a general idea where it was, so we headed in that direction.  About the time we left the mall, Vilma called and said they were done.  We said that we could be there in about an hour.  I hated they had to wait, but the car had to be renewed in December as it is my birthday month.  We found the office and I had to go in by myself.  The line was so, so and it did take about 30 to 40 minutes, but no problems.  We made good time making it back to the hospital and connected with Vilma.  We made it home about 4ish and Dwaine had planned a study with Don Santos and he had invited Xiomara and her family to go to Salcoatitan’s Bible study.  I still needed to stay home to do all the baking for the summer class for one of the lessons.  So, he did a change about and invited Don Santos to go.  In the end, Don Santos did make the trip to Salcoatitan, along with the family.  Well, I am trying to not have to pull those late, late nights and it paid off to make it to bed before too late. 

December 5, 2016

It’s in the bag.  For the morning, Dwaine and I went to Kelly’s where Kelly had invited a family to study.  We did not know exactly what to expect.  It took a few minutes for Jani to get ready, so I walked Nicole down to the church building for the summer course.  Jani is 16 and she arrived closer to 10.  Kiki joined in on the study and we stayed on until summer school was out at 11:30.  We think Jani’s mom will study at a future date. Carlos had taught Bible in the summer course and Cesar had helped to serve snacks.  For the afternoon, we went to San Salvador so Cesar could meet Jose.  Cesar and Eliza are going to the States for Samuel’s graduation, Eliza’s brother.  They will be there until the end of December.  So, we planned a trip to Pricesmart.  We had gotten a membership when we came home in March, but had not gone back since.  Pricesmart is a lot like Costco or Sam’s Club, so we had a trunk full of all those bulk items.  We did not finish until 5 and with traffic, it was dark leaving San Salvador.  We never make that drive at night as it really is not safe.  Fortunately, it was not uneventful except for a few holes in the road that were not visible.  It made for a tiring trip, but good. 

December 4, 2016

Nonstop.  This month Alba volunteered to do the building cleaning, but it was the first time for her.  She planned to go at 8, so we said that we could arrive at 9 to help her finish up and place chairs.  She was well underway when we arrived and we finished up.  She left soon to go change and Dwaine left to go to pick up Sister Ana’s group.  Nelson came for the first time in a long time.  He was one of our original English students and has studied off and on for over a year.. Kelly, Kiki and Nicole also brought a visitor, a young girl of 17 who was a neighbor named Jani.  They said the children and then the mother wanted to study.  I have met the mother, Julia, on several occasions, espcially from door knocking and then she helped with Kelly's sister's graduation party.  Kelly said her husband only came once a month due to work and it was hard to raise four children.  So we set up for Monday morning.  I got to sit it on about half of the lesson before helping with the snack.  It was reheating pupusas, so that took a little time.  We wrapped up about 12:30 and Douglas and Sonja were due to come at 1.  When we got to Ana’s, Douglas and Sonja were not quite ready, so Dwaine said he would pick them up at 1:10 and I could have a few minutes to finish lunch.  All came to pass smoothly and we started to study at 2 or 2:15 and had an hour to dedicate to study.  It was a good study and they said they wanted to go to Salcoatitan for their service.  They stayed with me so Dwaine could go pick up one more round from Sister Ana’s.  Cesar took half our load with him and we all arrived by 4.  It was a good service and several from Juayua attended and some visitors were there. During the Sunday school class, we kept having a large rabbit hop by.  It was loose on the patio and it kept joining us for the study.  For Salcoatitan, we had a big class, about 10 kids. Afterwards,  it was a challenge to decide how to get home and some just went on the bus.  That was great.  

Visiting bunny....or should I say.....

Visiting children at bunny's home

December 3, 2016

Down Day.  Is there such a thing?  Dwaine ran some early morning errands and I spent the morning preparing for the summer course.  Jim Norville had brought a notebook from a summer class I taught years ago for a foundation for two days of teaching I will do in the upcoming week.  I could remember it had lots of hands on activities, so it is a start for the class.  It is a slow process to see what I can do with a two groups of students of 10 to 22 and ages 9 – 18.  The kids would love anything so it is a matter of what I can get my hands on to present the lessons.  My main goals are to get the children excited about coming back, meet some parents, learn some science and have a great time with the childrens…..all glorifying God in the process.  I pray all will come together.  We did a late morning run for groceries to get ready for a meal on Sunday with Douglas and Sonja.  We planned to make a visit to one lady for the afternoon, named Rut.  She is a teacher and had visited a couple of Ladies’ Events.  She had said she would have some free time in December, so we wanted to follow through with that.  But, then we had a late season hard rain for the afternoon and decided to shoot for early week, as she lives on a dirt road that is a little round about to get to.  We have slowly learned people don’t like visits in the pouring rain.  So, we worked on around the house with some projects and some cooking and finally a funny movie. It was a good day, but out of character and we both felt like we had a little cabin fever at the end.  To me that is funny with only one slow day.  

December 2, 2016

Stay home and they will come.  Chocolate zuchini bread….yummy.  Kelly and Nicole were coming for our morning study.  I started working on the book, 30 Days through the Bible by F. LaGard Smith with Kelly and Nicole.  Since we only meet once a week, 30 days will be 30 weeks.  And then, we also visit and often don’t complete the lesson, so we should be set for at least a year.  Hopefully it will give some good foundation in a Biblical overview.  We had our snack and started the study, and there was a knock on the door.  Regina and Arnoldo had stopped by after picking up Arnoldo’s grades at school.  Earlier, he had received a medallion for 3^rd place in his studies.  They stayed for about an hour and it was a good time of fellowship.  In all, Kelly and Nicole stayed from about 8:30 to 11 and we finally had to call it quits to make a visit and return for a noon study.  When we took Kelly and Nicole home, we stopped by the house that we first lived in and where Seily and Mario had lived.  Don Santos said that a single, older lady moved in and we should go by and visit.  She was hesitant to open the door, but she finally felt safe and came out to meet us all.  Kelly lives across the street and offered to help her any way possible.  We invited her to church and hopefully she will give us a visit.  She has family in a nearby town, but no family in Juayua.  We thought that Douglas and Sonja were coming at noonish, but they did not arrive.  I had a study at 2:30 with Katheryn and at 2 there was a knock on the door.  It was Douglas, Sonja and their daughter Erica. I called Katheryn and she actually was in Sonsonate, so we rescheduled for 3:30.  Just a few minutes into starting the study, Marina knocked on the door.  We were getting going on a baptism study, and we got another knock on the door.  It was Nelson.  He has not come in a few weeks because of work in the fincas is very prevalent now with the coffee harvest.  But, he was available for a study today.  So, with all those folks, we got going and had a great study.  Douglas asked if he could come back on his next day off, Sunday, so they are going to come at 1.  He is really interested.  He is attending a church and while he sees a need for baptism, he does not see a break in ties with that church….so there is some direction for the next study.  I picked up Katheryn about 3:45 and Ana Vilma was walking by, far from home.  Interestingly, she was looking at the house for Carolina’s family where Brenda, the young girl who just moved to Salcoatitan had lived.  Recently, they had to move out of their home and into Sister Ana’s home.  It is the children’s father and 4 of Carolina’s siblings.  It is so difficult to find living quarters here and we are going to try to keep ears and eyes open to help.  Having that many people added on to Sister Ana’s has just overloaded their home.  I don’t know how many live there, but it is bordering on 10 to 12 before the 5 more moved in.  That is a lot in one home!  Katheryn and I studied until about 5:30.  She didn’t feel very well, so we did not go so long. Then, we did the 'drop-in.'  We met Don Santos riding his bike to the new house that we originally thought we might rent, but moved on into town.  It was beautiful!  He said right now he was going to keep it for his family and short term rentals. That wrapped up our day of ‘drop ins.’  Sometimes we wonder on our end how many people we miss while we are out.  

Hodgepodge gathering for an afternoon study.

Don Santos' home that is almost complete.

 

December 1, 2016

Summer school.  Cesar taught the morning session on Art in Salcoatitan.  Again, they had about 9 or 10 students and Cesar did a great job.  Afterwards, Cesar, Eliza, Carlos, Linda, Dwaine and I met for a couple of hours about working more closely together in the two cities.  Dwaine and I came home about 3:30 for our study with Blanca.  When we arrived at her home, her son said that she was really sick and unable to study.  So, for the evening Dwaine went to a study at Cesar and Eliza’s to wrap up Matthew 28.